started in labor unions. Others have studied abroad and decided to return, as activists or journalists. The most popular blogger is the half-Welsh, half-Malay scion of a royal family. (Most Malaysian states still have sultans.) The two found- ers ofMalaysiakini, the countrjs best on- line news site, met as students in Austra- lia. Some are religious; many are not. But everyone, even Lim Teck Ghee, a staunch atheist, seems to agree that the chances of Malaysià s becoming a more democratic, less racialist society depend almost entirely on the former Muslim student leader who helped institutional- ize Malay nationalism: Anwar Ibrahim. H is arrest in 1998 was probably the making of him as an opposition leader. It came at a time when Malaysian society was beginning to open up, espe- ciallyon the Internet. One of Mahathir' s ambitions was to make Malaysia into an Asian Silicon Valley. Foreign companies were invited to invest in a "Multimedia Super Corridor" between the new inter- national airport and the twin Petronas Towers (also known as Mahathir's Erec- tions), which rise like gigantic pewter cocktail shakers in the center of Kuala Lumpur. An international committee of experts, including Bill Gates, advised Mahathir that if he wished to attract for- eign investment, censoring the Internet would be unwise. As a result, Malaysian readers now have access to news and commentary that is independent of the government. Steven Gan, a Chinese Malaysian, is one of the founders ofMalaysiakini.com. Inspired by Anwar s call for reformasi, po- litical change, he launched the site with his partner, Premesh Chandran, in No- vemberof1999. On the night of An wars arrest, ten thousand people had turned out to listen to his speech against bribery, ethnic discrimination, and rule by decree. Reformasi became the rallying cry of all those who felt disaffected by the corrupt autocracy that Malaysia had become. Every Malaysian able to go online knew what Anwar said when he was sentenced at his trial: "I have been dealt a judgment that stinks to high heaven. . . . The cor- rupt and despicable conspirators are like worms wriggling in the hot sun. A new dawn is breaking in Malaysia. Let us cleanse our beloved nation of the filth and garbage left behind by the conspira- 36 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 18, 2009 tors. Let us rebuild a bright new Malay- sia for our children." 'When we launched Malaysiakini, we had five hundred readers," Gan told me in a sidewalk café near his office. "By the time the decision went against Anwar in the sodomy trial, we had three hundred thousand." Malaysiakini, which has paid subscribers, actually makes a profit. One of the effects of Malaysiakini- and of a number of immensely popular bloggers, such as Raja Petra Kamarudin and Haris Ibrahim-is the emergence of a genuinely multi-ethnic debate. Raja Petra is the aristocrat, related to the Sul- tan of Selangor. Haris is a half-Malay lawyer. Another influential figure is Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun, a Chinese I.T. consul- tant turned politician. Divisions that exist in daily life seem to fade away on- line. Malaysiakini is published in En- glish, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. "Ma- laysiakini has provided a platform for different communities to express them- selves on sensitive issues, like N.E.P., Islam, human rights," Gan says. "More non-Malays are finding their voice. They no longer feel they need to leave their " country. The demonstration on the night of Anwar's arrest was largely a Malay affair; it took a little longer for the minorities to stir in public. Indians had largely sup- ported the ruling National Front, which was led byuMNO and backed by the Ma- laysian Indian Congress party. This changed in November of 2007, when thousands of Indians marched in the streets to deliver a petition to the British High Commission, insisting that the British take responsibility for the treat- ment of Indians under colonial rule. It was really a stunt to protest against eth- nic discrimination. But the petition never reached the High Commissioner: sol- diers and riot police with water cannons and tear gas cracked down on the pro- testers with maximum force. "I shall never forget that day," Charles Santiago, an Indian M.P. who took part in the protests, told me. "There was pent- up frustration there before, but that day something snapped." The frustration had :4, , ' many sources: blocked job prospects, dis- crimination in education and property ownership, destruction of Hindu tem- ples, young Indian men dying mysteri- ously in police stations and prisons. "The point of the petition was to raise con- sciousness among Indians about their rights, to embarrass the government," Santiago explained. "But the crackdown was so heavy-handed that even the Chi- nese became sympathetic to our cause." It was the first time, Santiago said, that "people of all stripes, rich and poor, went into the streets to make a point-this is what broke the back ofuMNo." The Malaysian Indian Congress lost heavily in the March, 2008, elections, as did the Malaysian Chinese Association. Many Indians and Chinese voted for Anwar's P.K.R. But the most important transforma- tion over the past decade probably oc- curred in the mind of Anwar himself He had long been critical of government pol- icies, but almost up to the time of his ar- rest he was still regarded as a rather arro- gant UMNO man. I tried to picture the haughty technocrat as he smiled at me in his daughter's sparsely furnished office at the P.K.R. headquarters. All I saw was a charmer, whose fine dark hair, snappy spectacles, and black goatee gave him the air of a jazz-loving hipster of the nineteen- fifties. Even at his own party headquar- ters, he spoke softly, sometimes in a whis- per, aware that anything he said was likely to be overheard. I asked him whether he had expected Mahathir-a man he had known for more than thirty years-to treat him so harshly. "Yes and no;' he replied. "I didn't think he'd go that far. 1'd seen him de- stroy opponents, but always short of using physical abuse." The 1998 trial was a humiliating spec- tacle, with elements of dark comedy: a mattress with semen stains was produced as evidence in court; police answered charges of abuse by claiming that Anwar had pressed a glass onto his own face. Years of solitary confinement provided much time for thought. "Prison life is such that you have to impose a punishing discipline on yourself," Anwar told me. "Otherwise, you become lethargic, or a psycho." Deprived of books for the first six months, Anwar was eventually allowed to read Tocqueville, Shakespeare, Con- fucius, the Indian and Arabic classics. He